Photo “Toy Cars” courtesy of Andrew Dai In North America, everywhere you look car manufacturers are trying to entice you to buy their brand. Car ads are absolutely everywhere. It’s part of our culture and you can’t avoid it – our society is brainwashed to have an affection for automobiles. As a kid, I distinctly ...

All photos by James D. Schwartz / The Urban Country Today is my last day on Hainan island – China’s southernmost (and smallest) province. Hainan is developing at an extremely fast pace. Hainan was designated as a Special Economic Zone in the 1980’s, and earlier this year China announced its intentions on turning Hainan into ...

Photo courtesy of Libby Telford A BMW driver cruises along a scenic boulevard with his top down while enjoying the beaming sun on a warm beautiful summer afternoon. Out of nowhere, an unrelenting squirrel dashes across the road only metres in front of the shiny black automobile. The driver puts his entire body mass into ...

The summer of 1967 sealed the fate for the future of Toronto. The city was on the verge of a revolution that would see the community reclaim the urban landscape to create a Mecca for the bohemians to hang out and relax – free from the toxic exhaust fumes that had smothered the city. It ...

Back in March 2009, a mock Nissan commercial surfaced on YouTube that pits Hyundai against Toyota, starring Andy Richter and James Adomian. I thought a slight change to the ending of the video would be more appropriate. (Hopefully the lawyers over at Nissan are sympathetic to us cyclists). The video highlights something that we have ...

Photo courtesy of Atwater Village Newbie Skymeter has developed technology that can change the world as we know it. Does this small Toronto-based start-up have what it takes to penetrate a potentially mass market for congestion tolling? Here in North America our transportation system is broken. People who seldom use our roads are subsidizing ...

Photo courtesy of dpurdy Sitting in a car at a busy intersection in downtown Toronto, another car approaches the intersection, barely slowing down before making a right turn on a red light – tires screeching as he proceeds through the turn. Ten seconds earlier and he may have been the latest driver to run down ...

Photo by earcos / Flickr Sitting at a red light, a car driver yells out his window “Excuse me, is this the bicycle lane?”. The cyclist passively shrugs and slowly rolls his bike closer to the curb. The light turns green and the driver stomps on the gas pedal flying past the cyclist with less ...